Elsewhere in controversial court nominations, the Senate Judiciary Committee will hold a hearing Thursday on judicial nominations, including that of John J. "Jack" McConnell, Jr., to be U.S. District Judge for the District of Rhode Island. McConnell, a partner at Motley Rice, is Rhode Island's leading trial lawyer, one of the original tobacco attorneys, and a generous campaign contributor to the state's Democrats. (He and his wife, $700,000 over a decade!) McConnell and then-Attorney General Sheldon Whitehouse (now a U.S. Senator) ginned up the public nuisance suit against paint manufacturers, eventually thrown out by the Rhode Island Supreme Court. (Earlier Point of Law post.)

Did Kagan appear in the trenches, battling for the little guy against powerful interests?

And here is what I found from Goldstein's 9750 Words on Elena Kagan:

Upon completing her clerkship, in 1988, Kagan went to work as an associate at Williams & Connolly in Washington, D.C.

That was it, out of 9750 words. From there she went in 1991 to the law faculty of the University of Chicago. A three-year stint at BigLaw seems to be the sum total of her private practice. While I don't hold out much hope she did anything other than represent corporate interests, there is the slim hope that she helped an individual. Maybe a pro bono representation of some kind?